The Great EasyShoe Fail

If there is one thing I know in this world, it is that O is the most frustrating horse on the planet when it comes to footwear.

Her feet are SO much better than they were when I first got her. They used to be paper thin, completely flat, and had her totally crippled even just on surfaces like pavement. Now, a year later, she is SO much better, but our terrain is still covered in rocks. Her living area and our riding areas are full of rocks. Big rocks, little rocks. Gravel, boulders. Rocks. 

So we need some help.

The problem is threefold: 

1) She has very crooked legs/feet and is toed in

2) She is a short-backed big mover, with some side to side fling of her legs, and is full of random erratic movement

3) She is made of paper and everything in the world rubs her, even just saddle pads and girths on everyday rides

All models of Easyboots rub her raw, and she rips them off. Renegades don't fit due to her crooked feet, and they spin and come off. Cavallos stay on, but rub her until she bleeds no matter how broken in (have had some success with Elastikon tape for dry, short rides). Every single model of synthetic glue-on that I've tried, she has stepped on and ripped off within a day. EVERY model, even just a rim of Superfast she ripped off. She doesn't step on herself until you add just that tiny little bit of extra weight on the foot, and then you can hear her vigorously clack-clacking along on every ride. (She does that in boots too, but not bare.) Every ride always ends up being one ride, because they always get ripped off anyway. I'm 100% sure she'd rip off steel too, if I chose to go that route, and god knows then she would take half her foot off along with it.

I've had my eye on the EasyShoe ever since it was announced last year. I've been eagerly awaiting it's arrival, and in February I pre-ordered a few to try. I made the discovery that she had sized out of the size she used to wear (which is good!), so I ordered the next size up and tried again.

And this time, I was determined NOT to let her get the best of these extremely pricey bad boys. They were gonna STAY damnit. They were gonna stay.

I glued them on with meticulous prep. I put a layer of casting material over the finished product. And then I added bell boots. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, that would be called Overkill. That was me desperately going "stay. Please stay. Damnit, you shall stay. You have GOT to stay."

Surely, she can't rip off a well-glued shoe with a cast AND bell boots, right?

She looked ridiculous, but I was not taking ANY chances that these bad boys were coming off ANY time soon.

 

I applied them yesterday morning. 

I rode today. 

You want to know how long they lasted?

8 miles.

Yes.

8 miles.

EIGHT STUPID SLOW MILES, and she had ripped off both casts, torn a bell boot, and then ripped an EasyShoe off. I felt her snag up on it (we were seriously just slowly trotting along), and then a few strides later I saw the dental impression material go flying off, so I had to turn around and go find the glue. I found some strewn bits of cast as well... looks like she systematically stepped on it enough times to slowly shred it over the course of eight miles.

I hope you are proud of yourself.

"Oh, I am."

She's an efficient mover when she is bare - she never hits herself, catches herself, or does anything questionable when she is totally bare. (Most rides or workouts, I don't bother putting polos/bells/brushing boots/whatever on her, because she doesn't need them.) And it doesn't matter if I push her hind toes to the absolute limit of how far back they can go either, as soon as I put something on her fronts she is stepping on it.

But when your ho-hum not-forward trot looks like this....

.... you're pushing it to the limit when you start to add some more impulsion. The be-bopping slow trot is already cutting it prettttttttttttty darn close to the interference level.

Mares. Back to the drawing board, again, for the millionth time.

End of March Analysis; April Goals! (Sort of.)

Is it really the end of March already?? Seriously, the older I get, the faster time goes. Wasn't it just Christmas?

March was an interesting month, and it went pretty well all things considered. I had some triumphs and some fails, some deep thoughts and some interesting introspection. And I celebrated my birthday AND celebrated having this crazy little red horse in my life for a whole year now!

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O-Ren March Goals:

1) Dressage work - back to walk-trot, and add in canter gradually! Get to it!! High priority!!

We didn't do *nearly* as much dressage work as I had wanted to, but near the end of the month we buckled down and got to it. I've gotten some very nice canterwork in - some of the best we've had - but it has been at the expense of the trotwork. If we don't canter EVER, then we can do trotwork. But if we canter at all, any day of the week, all she wants to do is canter during everything that we do. It's very, very hard. She wants to run hard, and fast, and all day long... or she wants to mosey on a long rein at the walk. She doesn't have much in-between and that makes things very difficult. It is hard to make something so frustrating (for both of us) a high priority.

2) Attend one or two more open XC schooling days! Spend time as well putting cavalleti/jump work in on the calendar as the canter improves!

This did not go according to plan at all - one schooling got totally rained out, I opted to go foxhunting instead of go to the second schooling (which I don't regret one bit), and the third schooling got moved to next month. Oh well, that's how it goes!

3) Install Easyshoes and see how they go! 

Another fail - I went to install and discovered that she had sized up since I last measured her (which is great! But also, a pain in the butt.) I just reordered them in the next size up, so we'll see how it goes when they get here. They are freaking expensive.... I'm sure EasyCare will be rolling in the dough after the preliminary rush to get them.

4) Consider 'what else' we want to try and figure out how to fit it into the schedule - keep doing endurance? Try roping? Barrels? Driving?
 We've been doing a little bit of everything as of late! I did rope desensitization with her this month as well as practiced on the dummy myself, did some more work on the barrels (and ran her, and won a check in the 4D!), and did more endurance type conditioning. There were no locally close endurance rides this month, so I didn't go to any, but there are some April ones upcoming. At this point, I think we need to be done with LDs, they're not doing either of us any favors. We'll be aiming at 50s - SLOW 50s - next. I have no interest in speeding through 50s!

5) Look at show/ride schedule - what will we be doing in the next few months?

Well, looked it over, got ideas, scrapped the ideas, looked more ideas over, and scrapped those ideas too. I'd say this goal didn't exactly get accomplished!

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O-Ren April Goals:
1) BAH. Give me a few days to think about this. I keep changing my mind on all of my goals and can't come up with a solid set of them.

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I know, I know, that was extremely anticlimactic. But I keep changing my mind over and over on what I *really* want to do with her. I want to event! Well, no I don't, too much money and dressage is a mental challenge. I want to do endurance and get to Tevis one day! Well, how am I supposed to make this horse a real endurance horse when she is such a spoiled picky eater and drinker? (Good eater, who is on every ulcer preventative that I can think of... but if there is stuff to look at, she'd rather look at things than eat. She doesn't eat on the trailer, EVER, and if the hay in front of her isn't perfectly to her liking, forget it, she looks at you and talks to you like she is starving but she won't eat it. I feel like endurance horses need to be garbage disposals, and she's just not. About the only thing I can solidly think of having her do long term that she'll be good at is run barrels, and I kind of feel like any idiot monkey with a hot horse can run barrels. It doesn't feel like it takes any particularly strong skill set to do it, which is why you see so many goobers doing it I suppose. It doesn't give me that "yeah, we can do this complicated thing because we are awesome!" kind of feeling.


She will probably be pretty good at it though, admittedly, once she gets faster and tighter:

 She is SO BEEF. It's almost all muscle, and she has short thin little legs.... it makes her look a bit like a pork roast up on toothpicks. Seriously though, she looks like one of those old school bulldogging type QHs - even though she's a warmblood! The mohawk is the cherry on top... it makes her neck look EXTRA freakishly huge. Most of this is sprinting type muscle... we've been doing lots of short burst of speed lately, just to give her brain a break. I clocked her top speed at 38.5mph the other day... yes, 38.5mph. THAT IS SERIOUSLY FAST.

 I have lots to write about, but am tired and feeling a little funky today. Lots of things to think about though, lots of things indeed.

Happy Gotcha Day!

Thanks to everybody who offered encouragement about our super crap dressage. You inspired me so much that I got out and did another dressage ride today, and am thankful to report that I had a WAY better ride today. Also, to clarify about the "arena" - it's not actual an arena per se, it's just a section of our big field that is flat and has fence on 3 sides (a big square). I ride out there for the flatness and the fenceline, but even though it is an actual field, it may as well be an arena in her mind, simply due to the fact that she has seen it a million times and it is now very boring. Same old things every day = very boring for an active mind like hers.

 This is a short entry, since it is getting late and my sleepy self needs some bedtime, but I did want to say Happy Gotcha Day to my red demon! Exactly one year ago today, I drove out to McKinney, paid $510 dollars for her ($510 because that was the amount the lady needed to cover her son's latest dental bill), had a huge fight with her about how we really do need to load on the trailer, brought her home, bathed her super crusty muddy self, and turned her out with my little herd.

 

Dohhhh so cute. Immy is so pretty, I wish she would have worked out as my primary riding horse but that just wasn't in her plan. I really had zero intention of keeping O when I first got her - hell, she was so horribly behaved at first that I absolutely hated her for the first two weeks that I had her - but as time went on, it became pretty clear that she was not leaving!

Happy Gotcha Day, you red demon you! 

Dressage Fail

Sigh. For two seconds, I thought I might have been making some real headway with O in her dressage work. But.... I suppose I was wrong.

I go through this about once a month, or once every other month.... I get super excited about dressage work/eventing work, buckle down to polishing out dressage work, completely fail, decide she has no real future in dressage, get to doing other things with her, marvel at how well she does other things, get bored, try to do more dressage, completely fail again. I'm a halfway decent jock and have a lot of tools in my toolkit for dealing with evasions and problem horses of all shapes and sizes. But O... O is easily the most difficult critter I've ever sat on.

Some days, her dressage-esque work is en pointe. She relaxes over her back, stretches out, and takes a nice contact. Sometimes, we literally can only trot for about 5-10 strides before she careens out of control again, and we can only go in straight lines along the fenceline, but it feels like something of a victory. Sometimes we can put together a whole walk-trot test. Sometimes. Maybe like, once every few months or so, we can do it. Sometimes we can canter, and the canter is good! But, once we canter, the trotwork totally falls apart, and I have nothing again. The more we canter, the worse everything else gets. 

For every good dressage ride, we have several terrible ones. She came to me a year ago with every evasive trick in the book - that's why I got her for so cheap, after all - and she uses them all at the same time without any particular warning. Ignore your half-halt, curl behind the bit, and take off? Her specialty. If you put your leg on to push her out to the bridle, she takes off. If you release her in front so that she can stretch out to the bridle, she takes off. If you half-halt her to stop her from taking off, she curls behind the bridle and takes off anyway. The more she zooms, the more she wants to continue to zoom. And you just can't wear her out... you just can't. An hour into our ride today, I was so fed up with her zoominess that I just let her gallop on to get it out of her system.... she galloped for at least 15 minutes full out, after a full hour of a completely horrible ride already. I was jelly in the saddle at that point, and she was still galloping as fast she could round and round. She was churning along so fast that I had no brakes anymore, and had to engage my e-brake and pull her around into the fence to stop her before I completely melted into a puddle and fell off. Did she quiet down after that? Of course not. I think this horse would rather gallop until she collapsed rather than put in quiet work. She was lathered in sweat and all she wanted to do was keep running. I managed to get her walking quietly for about 10 minutes, with my usual 5-10 trot steps along the fenceline, before finally just calling it a day. What the hell was the point of all of that?

And yet, I NEVER have problems riding her out along the trail, on a loose rein, at whatever speed I choose. She is ALWAYS perfect. If I choose to take a contact out there, and put her to work while moving along the trail? Always, always perfect. Always. Dressage on the trail? It's always good.

But put her in an arena, or confined area, and go round and round in the same setting? She is an absolute hellish nightmare. This is the only time we fight with each other. This is the only time that she reverts back to all of the horrible evasions that she came with. 

If there was such a thing as trail-ssage, we'd be all over that. We'd win everything. But, there is not. And so, like we do every month, I throw my hands up, again. And as I do every month, I beat myself up about it, because I feel like I am giving up. I feel like any horse can do dressage, dressage is good for every horse, dressage is the foundation for all of everything everywhere. I feel like if I only tried harder, if I only figured out some other way of better explaining things to her, if I only keep at it, somehow I surely will get it with her, someday. But I also feel like every horse has their strengths and weaknesses as well as things they enjoy doing versus things they don't enjoy at all. I know a lot of horses who are arena only horses, and absolutely lose their every-loving minds when you take them out of the arena. I know horses who you couldn't get to gallop if you tried, ones that are super happy to just plod around forever. I know horses who can't stand jumping. I know horses who you can't get down the alleyway for rodeo events. And, I know horses who think arena flatwork is the most boring, miserable thing you could ever do with your life... and O is one of those horses.

Is it training? Is is personality? Past issues? Current issues? Some of the above? All of the above? Yes, to all of it, to some extent.

Could we go event and do ok? Yes, I'm sure we could. Well, I *know* we could. But after doing eventing for so long with such a winning horse, just going in and doing "ok" is not what I want to do. I don't want to waste the money just to do "ok." I was horribly spoiled with having an awesome winning event horse in Gogo. Now, I want to go event and win, if I am eventing. I want to do recognized shows, big shows, if I am eventing. Otherwise, I don't want to waste my money. I've already been there and done that. And everything is different now to me, since I lost Gogo. Some days, I miss eventing something fierce. Some days, I don't think I'll ever want to do it again. On those days when I miss it, I get excited about working on flatwork again. On those days when I don't miss it, I am more than happy to throw up my hands and say *&@! it, I don't want to do this anymore.

Do I want O to event? Of course I do. Am I going to be disappointed if she doesn't event? A little, yes. Maybe not at all. I'm not sure. Am I willing to dump her and go find a different horse that is more suited mentally to eventing? Of course not. I'd rather make some other goal for the both of us to achieve instead, something we both love and want to do. 

I've been going through this sort of identity crisis ever since Gogo died. Am I going to keep eventing or not? I thought I was going to. Now I'm not sure. But who am I, if I am not an eventer? Am I still an eventer if I haven't evented in 5 years? Am I going to event with this horse? Am I going to event with a different horse somewhere along the line? What am I doing? Why am I doing it? Where do I go from here? Am I a complete failure, or am I just going in a different direction?

I don't know.

 

One thing that I do know.... it's deathstorm season here in Texas. This one passed us by, thankfully, but I think Pmare was not impressed...

The Dressij

I have a few more pics from the hunt last weekend!

Yes, I only made it into one of them. But, you can see some of our beautiful hunt country! 

I did a good deed for the universe this weekend. I got linked up with a questionable ad for a greyhound who had apparently been wandering in the street, and the people who had found him (that same afternoon) were asking $100 for a rehoming fee. That screamed stolen dog to me, so I went to pick up the hound, bartering him down to $50. I had the intention of finding the owner, but as it turned out, the owner had already been located and didn't want the hound back. The hound had been found running with another greyhound (who was muzzled and supposedly aggressive? Greyhounds just aren't aggressive so I have no idea what that could have meant), but the other hound had run off. I have four other dogs, including an elderly greyhound of my own of course, and knew that I couldn't keep him, but I couldn't leave him. He had layers and layers of dirt caked on him, was covered in ticks and fleas, and had a horrible haircoat and was thin. He was tattooed but not fixed, which was a little weird. I took him home, bathed him (several times), pulled at least 30 ticks off of him, doctored his open wounds (several, and it looked as thought he had possibly broken a hind leg at one point? He was not sound), and contacted my local greyhound adoption agency. I was VERY tempted to keep him myself, he was SO SWEET and SO HANDSOME, but he was very interested in making snacks out of my cats (which is common for race dogs), so off he went with his new foster mom. I'm sure he'll need extensive medical treatment, but once he is healthy he'll be adopted out! 

Isn't he gorgeous! Good luck to you my friend!

Following the hunt, O had three days off, then got back to work yesterday with some dressage. We were going to go to another barrel race on Tuesday, but I opted to have date night with Future Hubs instead (which was way fun and totally worth missing a ride for). Yesterday it was rainy and cruddy, but I wanted to ride anyway, so I tried to wait for a break in the weather to hop on. Not surprisingly, as soon as I finished tacking up, it began to pour. I was already about to mount up, so I figured why not just get on and ride anyway. She was understandably not pleased at first, and there was some head ducking/neck curling to avoid getting rain in the face, but the rain thankfully let up after a short about of time (though the mist persisted throughout the entire ride). I tried a little something different in that I cantered first, right off the bat. It did not do any favors for her trotwork, which I felt never really settled into the relaxation that I was trying to achieve, but the canterwork was GREAT. It was probably the best directly dressage related canterwork that I've done with her, and it was good in both directions! I held her tightly together with my seat, and that really kept her enthusiasm under wraps, but it also didn't overtighten her back - she just stayed in the same controllable rhythm, not at all speedy or rushed. I had a talk with Stacey a little while ago about her Mocha (who is a similar ride to O) and how to keep these little firecrackers under wraps, and we talked about holding with our thighs and seat, really holding. This worked for Mocha, and it also is working for O. O likes the stability of a SUPER quiet seat, and the quieter you are, the quieter she is. When she is a little up, she needs a strong halt halt about every other stride, but when she is relaxed, she is happy to smoothly flow along without any real intervention on my past. 

I've been using the running martingale on her every ride, just to make sure the old head toss that had resurfaced is going to go back down to the depths of hell, and it is working like a charm. Obviously that is only a temporary thing, but for now it is very helpful. I'll pull it off soon, but as for now, while we are really starting to finally get into the grit of proper canterwork, it is a good backup to have so she doesn't default the head toss. When she is relaxed and stretchy, no head toss... when she is fiery and not amused with having to keep it under wraps, the head toss comes out. We'll get there.

She says ughhhhh are we done yet, I'm soaked.

Today I tried to see about trying an endurance saddle on her (a real proper one!), but of course, it didn't fit. I therefore opted for another dressage ride, even though I usually don't do the same thing two days in a row. Today instead of warming up at the canter (which seems to fizzle her up a bit instead of quiet her down), I spent a good 20 minutes doing simple walk work on the bit, on a slightly longer rein, doing some easy leg yields and circles and serpentines back and forth between bends. At the walk, when she switches bends and you can move her laterally from side to side, she stretches out through her back and loosens up through her neck. The lower and stretchier you get her, the more relaxed she becomes. From there, we progressed on to some very simple, very quiet, very stretchy trot, and she was so good with that that I just called it a day on a very high note with a crisp and square halt. (She is the queen of haunches to the right at the halt). I am all about quiet, relaxed, stretchy work, especially for a mare like this one. If I can get through the majority of a ride with her just taking a nice contact and holding a steady rhythm - without having to give 5948925930293 halt halts to get there - then I am very happy. 

Tomorrow I probably won't have time to ride, but if I do, she is in need of a good long hack. Spring is here and the weather is beautiful, with highs in the upper 80's and bright sunshine. I'm sure deathstorm season is bearing down on us though... hopefully it won't be too terrible this year!

"Feed us! We are DYING of starvation!"

Tally Ho!

The Horse That Does Everything now has one more notch in her belt: she's a newly minted foxhunter! And, not surprisingly, she was totally awesome at it.

I groom for, know, and have crossed paths with several members of the Brazos Valley Hunt. (Apparently Texas, despite being enormous, is actually a really, really small place.) At some point in talking to one of the ladies that I groom for, we got to talking about hunting, and she invited me as her guest to the closing hunt today for Brazos Valley. I've been out hunting with Hickory Creek before, but not with Brazos Valley. It was local, the weather was just right (overcast with slight mist and about 55 degrees), and I was game!

(First though, I had to dig out and clean up all of my tack and hunt clothes... it's been awhile since I've had all of my stuff out. I really, really enjoy cleaning my tack when I sit down and get to it - something about shining, good-smelling leather makes me feel so good. I take pride in a clean horse, clean tack, and sharp attire, so I made sure everything was looking nice ahead of time.)

The morning dawned a bit chilly, grey, and damp. I was NOT awake early on, but somehow managed to drag my butt out of bed and out the door by 6:00 in the morning. (I leave the house at 6 most every day, so it's not like that was super early or anything, but the bed was so warm and the pets were so snuggly.... so hard to get up on days like that!) I fed and groomed both ladies, and noted with some surprise that P had several new bite/kick marks on her, one of which was a solid chomp to the middle of her back. I had been hoping to start sitting on her bareback soon - the girl doesn't even have enough weight/muscle in her back for any of my saddles or pads to remotely fit her - but that puts that out of the question. O only had one mark on her, a good bitemark to the chest, but was otherwise unscathed. My guess is that there was a coup in the middle of the night, and O put in one last stand for boss status and came out on top. Yesterday, she was following P around like a little lost puppy, but today she was completely doing her own thing. Yesterday they were side by side sharing a haybag, but today O would move from one haybag to the next, and P would get out of her way and go to the other haybag. Hopefully this is the last of the fighting.... I'll have to separate them if they don't knock it off. I'm not sure P will take to being second in command very well.

Anyway. We loaded up, headed out, and made it to the property at around 8:45AM. The hounds were set to be released at 9:30AM, so I tacked up, met some folks, and hung out for a bit while O munched and napped.

ZZZZZmunchmunchmunch. She's efficient like that.

The hounds were released right on time, and I headed out with the first flight. This hunt operated a little differently than I was used to - the staff went off totally by themselves, and the first flight stayed behind with another staff member. The second flight (which was mostly a hilltopper group) stayed back even further, and they just walked. We trotted and cantered along behind the staff, but never kept in hot pursuit with the hounds, and never got up close to the master, huntsman, or the whips at any point. The grounds were really beautiful wild prairie, unimproved cattle pasture that wound through some rugged lowland brush and trees and came back up again for some beautiful vistas. It was actually really great - we were back far enough that we got to watch the hounds work a wide area, which is quite different from times when I have hunted in the past and we have been largely in the woods. It was damp and the wind was quiet (for here), which made for perfect scent conditions.

The hounds sent something to ground early on in the hunt, and we moved on to a different area. In a lowland covert, much to everyone's surprise, the pack suddenly all went from sniffing around to baying and leaping around with a prize. There was no chase, they just happened to find and get something. We weren't sure what they had at first, but they went nuts over it. As it turns out, they actually had gotten themselves a grey fox! How about that, good job hounds! Our field master turned to us and said with surprise, "that's the first time in 17 years that this has ever happened!"

(Disclaimer: we normally hunt coyote down here. Foxes are not that common, and grey foxes are not pests. Coyotes, on the other hand, are huge pests, especially in a cattle pasture like we were in. A lot of modern day hunts just do drag hunts, which is when there is a pre-laid scent that the hounds can go out and pick up without having to actually hunt a living thing. Down here, both Brazos Valley and Hickory Creek do live hunts, probably just because there are so many coyotes that it is kind of pointless to lay a scent - there is always going to be a scent. It is not common to kill. If something goes to ground, you don't flush it out, you let it live on to see another day. When this fox got killed today, I was truthfully sad. I love the clever little rascals and I always want them to see another day. The thrill of the chase, the tradition, the attire, the camaraderie, it's all wonderful and I do love it, but I don't have interest in killing anything for sport. I've never seen a kill happen on a hunt and hope not to again - and probably won't see it again, simply because it just doesn't happen often and that isn't really the point of modern day hunting.)

As for O, she was compltetely 100% spot-on could-not-have-been-better perfect. I actually thought something might be wrong with her because she was so chill! (She is quite fine though, thankfully - I think she just wore herself out overnight having fights with P.) I rode her with a martingale and pelham, simply because I was expecting her to be strong and wanted at the same time to stick with some tradition, but I didn't need it. I cantered along on a totally loose rein, even popping over some little logs. She stopped on a dime and stood like a rock. She didn't bat an eye when a few stray hounds came busting up out of the brush and right behind her heels. She just looked on with interest the entire time, and I didn't have to do a thing except enjoy the hounds.

Basically, she's pretty much just awesome.

She was unimpressed about standing for photos. "Dude this is boring... time for a nap."
After the hunt, she promptly zonked out and took a two hour nap while we had out post-hunt brunch. She must really have been pooped after whatever happened last night. It's normal for her to be quiet and napping after a ride, but she was really out - I don't think she moved a single foot the entire time we were having brunch.

Once we were at home, I watched her for another 3 or so hours while I putzed around the barn, cleaned paddocks, filled water troughs, trimmed Pmare, and put on blankets, and she happily snarfed hay the entire time. She is fine, I think she was just worn out from whatever happened with P the night before. I did give her a gram of bute just in case she was feeling sore from her bites and kicks, but otherwise she is just going to have a few days off to relax and recoup. Mares.



On a TOTALLY unrelated note, as it turns out someone did get video of our run at Glen Rose! I had to laugh when I first saw it - I thought we were FLYING along, but we were pretty much just slowly cantering the entire pattern. I thought the turns were crisp and tight, and they were really sloppy. I do have to say, the third barrel was pretty good though!




She's something else isn't she. She events, does dressage, jumps, does poles, has had roping work done with her, chases cows, barrel races, foxhunts.... she does it all!

O Runs some Barrels

Scratch that title. How about, "O runs some barrels... and wins some money!"

(But before I get into that story, I wanted to make sure everyone is clear on what happened with Immy and P. Immy did go with P to the lessee's place at first, but she ran the lessee's other mare through the fence repeatedly, so that wasn't going to work. She ended up at a different place doing babysitter/pasture ornament duty, and is fine, fat, and happy at her new forever home where she never had to be ridden or do anything more complicated than get handfuls of cookies. She's doing just fine and they love her. So don't worry!)

Anyway! On Monday, after I brought P back, S and I went for a nice little walk hack and talked about what we were going to do on Tuesday. There was a barrel race at Glen Rose that she wanted to go to, so I decided to tag along and do some exhibitions for fun. As it turns out when we got there on Tuesday, she entered me in it!! I am obviously NOT a barrel racer and neither is O, so mostly I just flung my hands up and went sure, what the hell, why not!

Our exhibitions went decently - I trotted a few, I cantered a few. S gave me some tips on how to stop riding like, well, you know... an English rider... and we went on our way. (It still sounds weird to me to tell people I ride English down here... people down here don't know what dressage or eventing is, so I either tell them I ride English or that I jump. Then they sort of get it.) Mostly she told me to just let go of her head, to trust her to turn, to hang on and to just go as fast as possible. Yep, sounds about right.... I tweaked a few things in our last exhibition and it went pretty well. Much to my TOTAL surprise, O has the barrel pattern completely figured out. I would hustle up to the barrel, get to it, sit up and settle into my seat, and the mare whipped around each one by herself. I didn't have to turn her, just put my outside leg on to support her and around she went by herself. Which admittedly is exactly what you really want, versus all the people you see doing this cringe-worthy cranking..... yikes. 

As a small aside, it's a well known fact that there's a LOT of really, REALLY bad riding going on at barrel races... it's a sport where you don't need a trainer, much money, or any real equitation to actually be able to sort of crank around and get the job done, and it has some sort of weird glitzy cowgirl allure to it.... so you get a lot of really Bad Riding going on. There is a VERY obvious difference between people that clearly know what they are doing, and people that should seriously take up another hobby... maybe like underwater basket weaving, or taking care of pet rocks. 

I am not one of those riders. I will not EVER be one of those riders. The cranking and the spanking and the flailing legs.... that's not for me. I'd rather not fall off or royally tick my horse off, thanks! 

ANYWAY. Before I knew it, it was time for us to head on in. Remember, this mare has only sort-of cantered the pattern a few times.... she's no pro. I'm no pro either. But hey, why not! Down the alleyway we went.

And actually, we did pretty well all things considered! I took a really bad approach to the first barrel, and sort of cantered and weaved around trying to figure out exactly where I wanted to place myself. I failed at that and ended up burying her at the first barrel, and she just about trotted around it. We were not exactly hauling some ass at that point. However, I got us more or less unstuck on the backside and pushed her on. From there on out, she was MOVING - she zoomed to the second barrel and whipped right around it, zoomed to the third and whipped right around it too, and FLEW all the way home. The girl was HAULING ASS. And it was FUN!

Our time was a 20.29. We were the slowest ones there by several seconds, and were in LAST place. Not surprising! But somehow, even though we were in dead last, there were few enough people there (around 30-4) that we were 3rd in the 4D. Don't ask me to explain the divisions, I do not remotely understand how it works. But I got a check for $31! Not bad! And considering that I totally flailed and wasted a ton of time around the first barrel (and really, we were trotting), our time would have been WAY faster had we just gone about at fast around it as we did around the other two. 

So there you have it. My warmblood does pretty much everything ever.

As for old Pmare, she is doing well. She had a bath today when it finally warmed up enough to allow for it, and while she still looks sort of dull and grungy, she already looks way better just from eating good food for a few days. 

Not impressed with the bathing, the grooming, or the paparazzi. "Lady, leave me alone and feed me already will you?" Definitely still the same crusty old bat as she always is.

The mares got into an EPIC battle on Tuesday. I think what happened is that O used to be on the bottom rung when she first came to join the herd, and Immy regularly beat the crap out of her. Then the girls left, and she lived alone for awhile. When Tre came, O found herself on the top of the totem pole for the first time, although Tre did regularly try to take over. I think maybe she thought when P came back that she could try and pull a fast one over on the old mare and make herself the head honcho, but nobody knocks old Pmare off the top rung. O definitely started it - she turned her butt to P and backed into her, hopping up like she was threatening to kick. P of course turned her butt right around and backed right into O, and the hooves started flying. They threw themselves at each other like sumo wrestlers, screaming and double barreling - I almost thought their blankets had hooked at one point, they were mashed together so tightly for so long. Usually I let them sort their differences out, but this fight got out of hand quickly, and in a flash O had knocked P clean off her feet. P got up, hurled herself into O, and knocked HER clean off her feet as well, then jumped on her and started savaging O's neck with her teeth. I was making my way over there to break up the fight when they both stood up, reared and struck at each other, and P got one final chomp in. Then they quit and went back to grazing peacefully side by side. O has a number of scrapes on both hind legs, and P had several swollen bitemarks on her neck, but other than that they are both fine. O is now humbly following P all over the place like a little lost puppydog. 

P looks so crappy compared to O.... we'll get her back to where she was!